Pages

Saturday, January 23, 2010

20 Million Americans Collected Unemployment: Funds Are Empty

The record 20 million Americans who collected unemployment insurance benefits last year landed on a safety net that was already deeply frayed.New Interactive: ProPublica Predicts if Your State's Unemployment Insurance Fund Is About to Hit the SkidsA historical compromise has left responsibility for unemployment benefits largely in the hands of states, and they have fulfilled this charge with varying degrees of effectiveness.

In a series last summer with public radio’s Marketplace, we reported that only a handful of states had built up reserves sufficient to weather the Great Recession – and forecast a spate of borrowing by states where reserves ran out.

Half a year later, the direst predictions seem to be coming true: So far 25 states have borrowed more than $25 billion to keep benefits flowing after their trust funds ran dry. In many other states the situation is deteriorating fast.More Here...

13 comments:

Looks like Republican tax cuts do not work to create jobs. Take Kentucky, with two Republican senators, Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. I think scooping up the money they've received from lobbyists and putting it in Kentucky state coffers sounds good. They aren't exactly getting jobs creation in Kentucky. Most of McConnell's campaign funds come from outsie the state of Kentucky.

Kentucky could recall all represenatatives sent to DC. Strip them of their office. Then have, for example, representatives from other states double up and represent Kentucky.

I remember being at work one day, listing to my radio, when I heard about the collapse of IndyMac Bank. That was the first bank to fall. I did not refuse to see what was happening. I was the highest paid non-salried employee in my department, so naturally, I was the first to go after the Department Head was fired.

Natural selection has nothing to do with being laid off or not. It's pure chance. Natural selection is a scientific basis to it. If we were to live by natural selection we'd all be without jobs; life would merely be who could live by their wits and survival skills alone.

Getting laid off from a job, again, has nothing to do with natural selection you blubbering fool.

5:30 The definition of Natural Selection has nothing to do with job loss. An idiot working at McDonald's could keep their job and make the same as a highly trained professional who gets laid off and makes the same on unemployment. Don't be stupid. Losing your job today is a game of chance, not a sign of one's lack of intelligence or competency.

5:30 So what you are saying is that a moron who works at fast food and keeps his job, while the highly trained professional with lots of education and experience gets laid off, loses benefits ultimately -- you are saying that the moron fast food worker is the new winner in "Natural Selection?" That is absurd. If this is our future then the future of mankind is doomed. We can't have new innovations and creativity if only the fast food workers are viewed as the highest pinnacle of humanity.